2020 Danish mink cull

The political reactions to the handling of the culling caused the resignation of the Minister of Food Mogens Jensen in November 2020 and eventually led to snap general elections in 2022, which resulted in a strengthening of the ruling Social Democratic party.

[17][18] On 13 October, chief physician Anders Fomsgaard from SSI reported that the mutated coronavirus cluster 5, which was found in Danish mink, could potentially reduce the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

[15] The institute concluded, "Continued mink breeding during an ongoing COVID-19 epidemic poses a significant risk to public health, including to the possibilities of preventing covid-19 with vaccines".

Unfortunately, this also applies to breeding animals"[32] and further stated that, "With the corona mutations, which we are now seeing in North Jutland, we can risk that the efficacy of the future vaccine will be weakened or, in the worst case, absent".

[39] On the evening of 5 November, Kopenhagen Fur approached the Veterinary and Food Administration and requested clearer communication to the mink breeders, who felt frustrated and confused.

[41][42] On 9 November, the Danish Medicines Agency similarly stated in a memo that the cluster 5 mutation did not pose a significant threat to the efficacy of first-generation vaccines.

Kåre Mølbak thus stated on 9 November that the SSI's biggest concern since June had been the large reservoir of virus constituted by mink, and that the cluster 5 variant was not worrying in itself.

[46] Professor of immunology Jens Christian Jensenius wrote in October 2021 that there did not seem to be "doubt... that the Executive President of Statens Serum Institut professor Kåre Mølbak led the government astray leading up to the press conference on 4 November 2020", and that the results of Anders Fomsgaard's preliminary studies had been misused by Kåre Mølbak to foster the dramatic decision on 4 November, which was thus not made on grounds of evidence.

Jensenius stated that there was widespread agreement among professionals that mink farming on the large scale as practiced in Denmark could be a hotbed for new pandemics, but that the panicked culling, based on an alleged immediate danger associated with cluster 5, was not well founded.

[50] The next day, Anthony Fauci, at the time lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force in the United States, explained that he too found no reason to believe the mink infection to threaten a future vaccine.

[53] To Ekstra Bladet on 8 November the Minister of Food gave a statement that due to the urgency of the situation he had assessed that one "couldn't have awaited new legislation before delivering an announcement".

The criticism focused both on his responsibility for the culling decision without having secured legal authority and on the fact that he had reacted too little and too late to mitigate the risk of coronavirus mutations among mink.

[100] Food Minister Rasmus Prehn called it in May 2021 a "troublesome and regrettable" case, but added that he had no need to point fingers at the people who made the decision, which was taken to protect public health.

[101] According to Peter Pagh, professor of environmental law at the University of Copenhagen, there was a lack of legal authority to deposit the dead mink in the mass graves.

[62][61] In relation to this, Professor Andreas B. Ehlers noted in a memo, "that such an authority cannot be read from the preparatory work (forarbejderne) and the legal history of Section 30 of the Animal Husbandry Act (husdyrholdloven) as stated by the assessors".

[116] On 13 November two officials testified to the commission, that Ministry of Food had indicated that "a total slaughter, including all breeding animals, is considered to be fatal for the industry".

He explained, among other things, that the head of department in the Ministry of Justice, Johan Legarth, had initiated the meeting by claiming that SSI had indicated that all mink should be culled for reasons of public health.

[121] This memo was contradicted by the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Martin Justesen, who did not perceive that Legarth had made this statement, and he added that it would be highly unusual for an official to open such a meeting by presenting a conclusion.

On 30 December 2022 it was announced that Henrik Studsgaard would be new director in Esbjerg Municipality and that the Employee and Competence Agency due to him no longer being employed in the State halted all further investigation into his role in the cull and put down all charges.

[24] Immediately after the Mink Commission had submitted its report, a majority of the Inquiry Committee[e] announced that, after careful consideration, they had found no reason to bring charges before the Supreme Court (Rigsretten).

[182] A central question in the public after it became clear that there had not been legal authority behind the original order to kill all mink was, weather the government and Frederiksen particularly had been aware of this and thus consciously breaking the law.

[195] A single professor, Lasse Lund Madsen from the Department of Law at Aarhus University, found the immediate appearance of Frederiksen's actions to fulfill the criteria of gross negligence.

[206] In the assessment, they concluded that it could not be expected that Frederiksen would be convicted for gross negligence under the Ministerial Liability Act, and that she would therefore not be found guilty in a possible impeachment case.

[215] The law professors Kristian Lauta,[216] Mikael Rask Madsen,[216] Henrik Palmer Olsen,[216] Frederik Waage[217] and Jens Elo Rytter[217] as well as lawyer Jonas Christoffersen[217] has criticised the order to cull all mink outside the original locally delimited zones as unconstitutional.

[217] Judicial experts have in their criticism asserted that a stricter requirement for legal basis (skærpet hjemmelskrav), is in place when the government gives an order with such great ramifications for the right to property.

[239] However, in September 2022, the Danish Transport Agency, which was the secretariat for the independent valuation commissions, informed the Ministry of Food and Agriculture that, based on the experience from the first 25 cases, it could take until 2027 before all mink breeders would be compensated.

[248] Frederiksen apologised on several occasions for the process with the lack of legal basis, but pointed out the background, where the government received a serious risk assessment and had a responsibility to act, not exclusively for the sake of the Danes but foreign countries as well.

The government also underlined that the responsible officials during the undertaking were in an extremely physiologically stressful state of being and only endeavoured to act in accordance with interests of public health.

[276] In the finishing stages of the negotiations Venstre leader Jakob Ellemann-Jensen and Lars Løkke Rasmussen announced on 11 December that they both would no longer support a lawyer's assessment of the 2020 Danish mink cull.

[283] On 20 June, Venstre minister Troels Lund Poulsen stated that after a long investigation, neither the Defence Intelligence Service nor the Centre for Cyber Security had been able to revive Frederiksen's deleted text messages.